The Street Child World Cup is a football tournament for children all over the world who have experienced homelessness or are considered at risk of living on the streets. The tournament is much more than a game. The aims of the Street Child World Cup are to use the power of football to raise awareness and tackle the widespread stigma faced by street-connected children, inspiring countries, governments and communities to better protect, respect and support street-connected children worldwide. This was the Third Street Child World Cup, taking place every four years before the FIFA World Cup.
Last year, Cambridge United Football Club announced its long-term partnership with international charity Street Child United, working to help improve lives of the world’s most vulnerable children. As part of this partnership, Cambridge United are working with Street Child United to raise awareness of the Street Child World Cup. This was carried out through match day activities, school-based assemblies, ongoing fundraising challenges and attending the worldwide tournaments.
Cambridge United Community Trust’s Health and Inclusion Officer, Andy Farrer, was in Russia to represent and provide support from Cambridge United for the 2018 Street Child World Cup tournament. He said: “The Street Child World Cup provides a brilliant platform for young people’s voices to be heard across the world. It was amazing to meet the inspiring young people, who are so passionate about seeing a change in the way street-connected children are treated across the world. We hope that our support from Cambridge United will continue to raise awareness for street-connected children in the future.”
More than 200 street-connected children from across the world came together in Russia for their own boys and girls international football tournaments, festival of arts and Congress for their rights. The tournament saw equal boys’ and girls’ teams represent their countries, with Brazil winning the girls tournament and Uzbekistan winning the boys. Both finals were streamed live, with over 122,000 people tuning in to watch, creating a global platform for young people’s voices to be heard.
A further link between the two organisations is being shown with Cambridge United Community Trust CEO, Ben Szreter, taking part in Street Child United’s #Challenge14. To donate to this challenge for Street Child United please visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ben-szreter1
Read more from Street Child United’s website or follow their social media here:
https://www.streetchildunited.org/street-child-world-cup-2018/